My Almost Epic Summer

MY ALMOST EPIC SUMMER by

Category: Contemporary

Age Recommendation: Grades 6+

Release Date: 4/20/06

Publisher: Putnam

Reviewed by:

Rating: 4 Stars

Irene has a dream--to one day open a beauty salon specializing in the hairstyles of famous book heroines. You know,

Great

Women in Literature, like Franny Glass, Shug Avery, Janie from

Their Eyes Were Watching God

. The only

problem is,

she's just been fired from her own mother's hair salon. Fired. By her own mother. Clearly, this hairstyling

business is going

to need a bit of work.

But her mother and Judith Prior, owner of a secondhand shop a few doors down from her mom's shop, approach her

with a

proposition for a summer job--Judith will pay Irene to babysit her two children, Lainie and Evan, for the

summer. Suddenly

Irene's plans of drawing more hairstyles in her Heroine Heads notebook, of sunning herself on the

beach, are thrown out the

window in return for watching two kids.

She's relegated herself to a boring summer when she meets Starla, a new lifeguard at Larkin's Pond, and suddenly

Irene's

days are looking up. Starla is everything that Irene is not--beautiful, outspoken, brazen, and obsessed with

boys. As Starla

appears to take Irene under her wings, other things begin to fall by the wayside--like Irene's

responsibility towards Lainie

and Evan, her good sense, and her easygoing nature.

MY ALMOST EPIC SUMMER is a quick, entertaining read that will have you both laughing and cringing at the

situations

Irene finds herself in. Although not as emotionally involved as most of Ms. Griffin's previous releases, this is

a great book for

summer reading!

My Almost Epic Summer
by Adele Griffin